


are there still beautiful things?

by mauxre



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Childhood Friends, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Gen, Reader-Insert, Sad and Sweet, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, cute moments and sad moments, mentions of parental divorce, verbal fighting (between parents)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:02:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27937697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mauxre/pseuds/mauxre
Summary: “pack your dolls and a sweater, we'll move to india forever. passed down like folk songs, our love lasts so long.”— in which you found a friend in ushijima wakatoshi for one brief summer when you were seven years old.
Relationships: Ushijima Wakatoshi & Reader, Ushijima Wakatoshi/Reader
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	are there still beautiful things?

**Author's Note:**

> listen to: **seven** by taylor swift
> 
> this is basically a childhood friends au which tackles a very, very, _very_ sad theme :(

You were seven years old when you first met Ushijima Wakatoshi.

It was on a cloudy day at the beginning of summer and you vaguely remembered sneaking a peek from behind your mother’s legs to stare curiously at the intimidating family she was talking to.

Your new next door neighbors. The Ushijimas, she said.

Despite the massiveness of their immaculately clean household, they were a rather small family. The grandmother looked just as any other elderly would, but with an air of importance around her. The mother looked nice but stern, and you made a mental note not to get on her bad side. The father, on the other hand, looked the most welcoming.

Utsui Takashi, as he introduced himself. You remembered thinking it was weird it wasn’t _Ushijima_ Takashi.

“Hey, there,” he knelt down to your level and gave you a warm smile. “What’s your name?”

You stared at him, blinking a couple of times but still not giving up your spot from behind your mother.

“[Name],” you whispered almost too quietly after an encouraging look from your mother.

“That’s a pretty name,” his eyes crinkled around the corners as his smile deepened. “Don’t be a stranger here, okay? You’re welcome to visit anytime you like.”

“Really?”

This man seemed nice. His voice sounded soft and gentle. He didn’t seem like the type to yell at his wife, too.

“Of course. Be our guest! After all, our Wakatoshi could use a playmate.”

_Wakatoshi?_

You gulped as Utsui-san got up and gestured at a young boy to come closer. He looked intimidating but he seemed nice enough, too. Unexcited, perhaps, but nice nonetheless.

“[Name], this is our Wakatoshi-kun,” he clapped a hand on his son’s shoulder and beamed at you. “You’re of the same age. I’m sure you’ll have no trouble being friends.”

The so-called Wakatoshi nodded at you politely, to which you wordlessly nodded in return because _what else were you supposed to do?_ You just hoped Utsui-san was telling the truth and that the two of you would really have no trouble becoming friends. Because god knows you definitely _needed_ some friends.

“Thank you so much for your hospitality,” your mother beamed at the family, putting an arm around your shoulders, before bending down to smile at Wakatoshi. “And I hope you’ll take care of my [Name], too, Wakatoshi-kun. We just moved here yesterday and she hasn’t had a chance to meet new friends yet.”

Again, Wakatoshi nodded wordlessly. You were beginning to wonder if your new _friend_ would ever speak at all.

(He would, eventually.)

+

Sadly, Wakatoshi was the only _friend_ you made that week. But oddly enough, you weren’t too bummed about it. In fact, you grew to love the quiet company he provided.

Before you moved next door to the Ushijima household, you never really talked a lot back home. You talked to a couple of friends, sure, but in your own house, you always found yourself silent.

(Maybe because your parents had a lot more to say in screeching loud voices.)

And now that you’ve found a pair of listening ears in the form of the ever apathetic Wakatoshi, you found yourself making up for all the lost opportunities.

“I haven’t really done much exploring yet but I did see a small park on the way here. Do you wanna play there someday?”

He nodded.

“Great,” you beamed at him before carrying on with your one-sided chatter. “There was this small park back home, too, where I used to play a lot. Sometimes I’d play with the other kids, but mostly I’d just bring my trusty net and catch bugs by myself. Do you go bug catching, too?”

He shook his head, rubbing the volleyball he was holding as he sat beside you in the _engawa_ of their house.

“Maybe I’ll let you come with me one of these days… There’s this one kid back home who catches cicadas all the time but he immediately lets them go because he feels sorry for them. He was cool, he was the one who gave me my net.”

He hummed, genuinely interested.

“What about you? What do you do for fun— no, wait! Let me guess,” you put a finger to your chin and grinned teasingly, “is it volleyball, perhaps?”

Had you blinked, you wouldn’t have noticed the way his eyes lit up at the very mention of the sport and how he nodded more enthusiastically than usual. It wasn’t hard to guess, really — this boy practically lived and breathed volleyball, and it took you only a few hours upon meeting him to realize that.

“Cool. Are you any good? I bet you are. You know, I hung out with this kid back home who plays volleyball, too. He calls himself a… setter? Is that right? Yeah, I think that’s it. Anyways, he used to hurt his fingers a lot and…”

Wakatoshi was surprisingly comfortable to talk to. Though quiet and stoic, he never gave the impression that he was bored or that he wasn’t listening. And as you droned on and on a bit about volleyball and a lot about your life back home — essentially letting him know more about you than you did with him — you hoped that someday, he’d grow to be comfortable with you, too.

(He would, gradually.)

+

Wakatoshi finally spoke to you exactly one week after you met.

You spent all of the last week practically living in their house, with your dad constantly out for work and your mom practically attached to her phone talking to someone in hushed tones. You didn’t mind, though. Utsui-san was welcoming, as always, and despite your initial reservations about Wakatoshi’s mother and grandmother, they both turned out to have taken a liking to you.

They were both still strict, though, like you initially thought.

“Do they do that a lot? Talk privately, I mean,” you asked Wakatoshi when the two of you were told to ‘play outside while the grown ups talk about adult things’, and were given some crayons and sheets of paper to entertain yourselves with.

He shrugged. He didn’t nod or shake his head like he usually did, which you found odd. After all, you pegged him as someone who only answered with a sure yes or a sure no. _Maybe this was a touchy subject?_

“Here, take a load of this,” you nudged him gently, gesturing at your blank paper. With a crayon gripped tightly in your hand, you started to draw what was, in your seven-year-old mind, the coolest thing in the world.

He waited patiently for you to finish, noticing how your tongue peeked out at the corner of your lips as you scrunched your face in concentration. You looked like how _he_ would when he was practicing his spikes.

“All done!”

You showed him your _cool_ drawing of a volleyball and beamed. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the coolest thing in the world. But, hey, Wakatoshi looked a tad bit impressed.

“It’s your _pet_ volleyball,” you teased him, smirking. “I even got the blue and yellow colors right, I think. Bet you can’t make a better one!”

You were egging him on, you knew that. But to be fair, you didn’t actually expect him to react. After all, this was _Wakatoshi_ , and what might get a reaction out of any other kid probably wouldn’t have the same effect on him — the most you’d get out of him would probably be a couple of blinks.

And he _did_ blink. Once, twice, then thrice. And then he completely caught you off guard when he grabbed your crayon and started drawing on his own blank sheet.

_Whaaa—?_

Did you really just get _the_ Ushijima Wakatoshi, master of silence and ultimate worshipper of volleyball, to humor you?

You tried not to be too shocked because he might not appreciate that, but you couldn’t hold your surprise any longer when you noticed a very stark contrast in how _he_ drew his doodle compared to how _you_ drew yours.

“Wakatoshi! You’re left-handed?”

He stilled, fingers gripping his crayon tightly you almost thought he would break it. He looked at you briefly before nodding stiffly and continuing with his drawing.

“Wow, that’s so cool!” You gaped at him, awestruck, as he turned to stare at you with a confused (and somewhat hopeful) expression. You didn’t pay it any mind, though, too busy being amazed at his unique trait.

You transferred your crayon from your right hand to your left, and tried to mimic your friend as you colored in some finishing touches on your own drawing. Wakatoshi, on the other hand, stared at you for a good few minutes, and if you had been paying attention, you would’ve noticed how his mouth opened and closed a couple of times.

It was only when you were picking up a new blank sheet to draw on that you heard a quiet voice.

“Do you mean it?”

You looked up at the olive-haired boy with wide eyes. You couldn’t believe he was _finally_ talking to you. And he had a nice voice, too, in a non-weird way. It definitely matched how he looked and right now, he looked—

_“Do you really think being left-handed is cool?”_

—vulnerable?

You tried (and failed) to be subtle in studying his expression but he didn’t seem to care. He was probably more interested in your answer, anyway, and whatever that may be was something he _did_ care about.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

Your answer was probably the lamest and non-explanatory response in all of mankind. But you were still seven, after all. At that age, you didn’t need any further explanation, and neither did Wakatoshi.

“My mother wants me to practice being right-handed,” he mumbled.

_Oh._ So that’s why he was being weird.

“That sucks.” Frankly, you didn’t know what to say. This was his _mother_ you were talking about, and though you were on good terms with her, you wouldn’t dare contradict her in her own household, never mind the fact that she probably wouldn’t hear you, anyway.

“My father is trying to convince them not to,” he continued, and it was the most he talked with you ever since you met.

“I think your dad’s right,” you whispered, still wary that his mom might hear you. “Your left hand could be your greatest ally. Or your greatest strength. Who knows?”

To be completely honest, you neither understood nor believed half the things you were saying. And while you were too busy mentally applauding yourself for using a _big_ word like ‘ally’, Wakatoshi stared at you with an expression that would, from this day forward, decorate his face every time he thought of you.

And even if you had seen it, you wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint what it was.

(Appreciation.)

After a few beats, the young boy finally looked away from you and went back to his drawing before uttering a few words.

“That’s what my father said, too.”

+

True to his word, Wakatoshi eventually took you to the small neighborhood park the very next week.

With a wordless promise to your reluctant mother that he’d keep an eye on you the entire time, your olive-haired friend walked hand in hand with you all the way to the park, his other hand carrying the _bento_ boxes his grandmother had packed for the two of you.

You had to hand it to him, though. Wakatoshi was truly mature for his age. Nothing about him screams ‘seven year old’ and at this point, you were wholly convinced he was actually an adult trapped in a child’s (still impressively big) body.

Because only the most patient grown up in the world would’ve been able to keep up with your antics.

“Toshi, that’s too high!”

“You told me to push you higher,” he mumbled but humored you, nonetheless, and toned it down a notch.

“Now, it’s too low…”

“You’re confusing me,” he simply said, letting go of the swing you were on, and moving over to the clear grassy area, essentially leaving you to swing yourself to your own heights.

You pouted at him but eventually decided you were done tormenting him for the day. With your feet heavy on the ground and your grip tight on the swing, you took a couple steps back, before pushing yourself off.

To your utter surprise, you swung higher than before — even higher than when Wakatoshi pushed you — and your dumbfounded mind vaguely registered that you were _flying_.

Like _actually_ flying.

As in your-butt-was-no-longer-on-the-swing flying.

You squealed — whether in delight or in fright, who knew? You didn’t even know when your grip on the swing loosened. All you knew was that fleeting moment in the sky when you felt weightless, when you felt _free_.

_How nice..._

Your anti-gravity experience only lasted a few seconds before you finally landed flat on your butt on the exact patch of grass that Wakatoshi had been playing one-man volleyball on. Rubbing your sore bum, you turned to him, jaw dropping in disbelief.

“Are you okay?” He asked you, concerned.

“Yeah.” You blinked, before… “That was amazing, I wanna go again!”

He wasn’t the least bit surprised. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said almost immediately.

You giggled, having expected that exact reaction from him. Standing up, you dusted yourself off and helped him up, too. (Not that he _needed_ any help.)

“Come on, Toshi,” you grabbed his hand and tried to pull him back to the swings but he proved to be too strong, too sturdy. “It’s fun and—”

“No. _Volleyball_ is fun. Flying off a swing isn’t.”

“Yeah, yeah, urgh—” You tried to pull him with all your might but he simply stood in place, his feet firmly planted on the ground. “You just won’t budge, huh?’

After a couple more minutes of you struggling and Wakatoshi just staring at you without any hint of amusement, you finally gave up, straightening up in front of him and wiping some hard-earned sweat off your face. “Alright, fine, you win. Let’s just play with your stupid volleyball, then.”

“Volleyball isn’t stupid.”

“Whatever.”

As it turned out, he was right. Volleyball was surprisingly fun but you would never admit that to him. Though after a few passing drills and a bruised finger, you were getting hungry so he laid out the blanket his mother packed for the two of you, and opened up your _bento_ boxes.

“Say, Toshi,” you mumbled a while later after swallowing a piece of octopus sausage (because you definitely didn’t want _another_ lecture from Wakatoshi about talking when your mouth is full), “Can I ask you a question?”

You eyed the mix of characters written on the tag of his _bento_ box. In bold and bright colors, the name ‘Ushijima’ was proudly stamped, and your mind drifted back to a little detail you noticed when the two of you first met.

“Your dad…” You continued when he nodded in response. “Why don't you have the same name?”

At first, you didn’t want to be nosy. But while you were too busy restraining yourself from asking intrusive questions to your new friend whom you just met a few weeks prior, your mind was already running wild with all kinds of crazy theories about his dad’s unconventional name.

Might as well ask Wakatoshi outright before you accidentally blurted out one of your crazier theories and ended up offending him. (Especially when said theory involved his father being a magician in hiding, on the run from an influential group of nonbelievers who wanted to unravel his secrets.)

“‘Ushijima’ is my mother’s surname,” he answered, calmly. “I adopted it when my parents divorced.”

“Divorced?”

_Why did it feel like you had heard that word before?_

“It means my parents are no longer married. After the summer, my father’s going back to America where he lives…”

_Oh_.

“Oh,” you said, dumbly. “That’s… I’m sorry, Toshi.”

“It’s fine. It was a long time ago when I was much younger.”

“Did you…” You mumbled, trailing off for a moment. “Do you still remember it? I mean, uh… Did you see it coming?”

He nodded. “They used to fight a lot before it happened. My grandmother, too.”

Oh.

_(“—don’t know what you’ve been doing in your spare time! I work all day and this is what I come home to—”_

_“—dare you?! I’m doing my best right here, and I ask for this one small favor from you and you blow the fu—”_

_“—what you’ve been teaching our daughter! You open that stupid mouth and feed her all those bull—”_

_“—had enough! I’ve had enough! I’m getting a divorce! We’re getting out of here, you selfish assho—”)_

_Oh._

“Oh,” you mumbled, nodding your head dumbly, a strange sensation washing over you. Your stomach churned a bit as you pushed away your half-eaten lunch, your appetite long gone. Fiddling with your fingers, your next words were no more than the quietest of whispers. “I know the feeling…”

If Wakatoshi heard or noticed anything, he didn’t let on.

+

You never really wanted a big house.

You spent most of your time outdoors, anyway, so what good will a few more hectares of your home do if you weren’t there much to enjoy it? Your old house before your family moved was a small two-floor structure, but you spent most of your day either in school or at your favorite park, anyway. Your current house right next to the Ushijimas was a modest one-floor apartment, but you were practically living next door at Wakatoshi’s, so what was there to complain about?

Now, though, you desperately wished for a bigger home. Just a couple more square feet you could go to so you wouldn’t have to hear all the hateful words just outside your bedroom door.

_“—don’t care what your fucking lawyer says, you’re not taking my daughter with you—”_

_“—you expect me to leave her with you after everything you’ve done—”_

You tossed and turned, laying on your side on your cramped twin-sized bed, and squeezed your eyes shut.

_“—don’t you go blaming this all on me, I’ve done nothing but provide for our family—”_

_“—don’t you go acting all high and mighty, now, you fucking bastard—”_

No good. You turned to your other side, eyes still squeezed shut, and sandwiched your head between your pillows.

_“—up, shut up, shut up! Fine, then! Go get your fucking divorce, but don’t come crawling back when—”_

_“—you, I hate you, I hate you! I wish I never married you! I wish I never met you! I wish I—”_

Still no good.

Without another word, you sat up, took out your slippers and climbed out of your first-floor window, your movements almost robotic. Luckily _this_ house only had a single floor, otherwise, you never would’ve managed to sneak out silently, cross the small street just as quietly, climbed in through another window not so gracefully, and finally met eyes with very familiar olive-colored ones.

“It’s late.”

“I know,” you said with quivering lips but you managed to hold your composure, looking around for something to distract you. “Y-You don’t sleep with a blanket?”

“It gets too hot in the summer.”

“Oh, right,” you barked out a dry laugh. You mulled over your words for a moment, before finally… “Can I stay here for a bit?”

Wordlessly, Wakatoshi scooted over and made room for you. Swallowing a couple of times, you moved towards his bed, dragging out each step one at a time, before finally settling down on the side of the mattress closest to the window.

The two of you stayed like that for a while, just staring up at his bedroom ceiling, hearing nothing yet everything at the same time.

The olive-haired boy turned to face you after a few cricket chirps, a silent question on his face. You sighed.

“I think my parents are gonna be divorced soon, too, Toshi.”

He wasn’t surprised. He didn’t know much about your parents in contrast to how much you knew about him and his family, but he _definitely_ heard all those late nights filled with angry screaming coming from your house in the few short weeks since your family arrived.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s just…” You took a deep breath, your eyes tearing up a bit. “Can I sleep here for the night?”

Your eyes remained trained on the ceiling. Wakatoshi’s room was rather plain and… stiff, for a lack of better term. You made a mental note to convince him into putting up luminous star-shaped stickers on his ceiling sometime. You vaguely remembered seeing a store a few streets over, maybe they sold some—

_Huh?_

“What’s this?” You stared, confused, at the object in Wakatoshi’s hands which he had started to drape over you, effectively interrupting you from your mindless thoughts.

A… blanket?

“A blanket,” he said simply before completely draping it over you and tucking you in.

“I can see that. Why are you—”

“I don’t want you to get cold.” — _(“But it’s summer...”)_ — “Besides…” he trailed off, “this is my favorite blanket. I used to sleep with it a lot when my father first moved away.”

_Oh._

“Oh,” you uttered, dumbfounded but touched. “Th-Thanks, Toshi.”

“No problem,” he nodded at you, leaning over to turn his bedside lamp off before turning to face you in the stark darkness. “Good night, [Name].”

“Good night, Toshi.”

+

Sometimes, you had fleeting thoughts about how Wakatoshi always seemed to be handling his parent’s… situation… well.

But sometimes, those thoughts were immediately squashed by rare moments of vulnerability in which the volleyball-fixated boy’s usually stoic face is decorated with more telling expressions.

Today was one of those moments.

“Toshi,” you said gently so as not to frighten him. “Why are you in your closet?”

As if the sight of him hugging his knees in his bedroom closet wasn’t unusual enough, the fact that he was doing so in broad daylight at the time you two usually played together just added to the weirdness of it all.

When you hid your own closet, you always did it at night. But maybe you didn’t need to tell him that...

“I don’t want to go outside today,” he said in a clipped tone, turning his head away from you.

“We don’t have to. We can just play here in your room…”

He didn’t respond, turning his head even further away from you as if sending a non-negotiable message.

_Did he want you to leave?_

You stood still for a moment, your hand still gripping the closet door from when you wrenched it open a few moments earlier, and observed how Wakatoshi didn’t budge.

_Ha! As if you’d leave him like this._

With firm resolve, you opened the closet door even further, and scrambled inside. Unfortunately for your olive-haired friend, your seven-year-old brain still hadn’t learned to read the room and whatever hopes he had about being left to wallow alone was thrown out the window when you squeezed yourself in the closet, too.

He didn’t say anything, so you took that as a sign that he wasn’t entirely too opposed with your intrusion. Hugging your knees to your chest in the same fashion, you waited a few breaths before finally getting to the bottom of things.

“What happened?”

Years later when you’d look back on that moment, you had to stop yourself from cringing at your own nosiness. But back then, Wakatoshi hadn’t seemed to mind.

“My father,” he trailed off for a bit. “He was supposed to leave by the end of the summer.”

But summer wasn’t even halfway through yet…

“But?” You asked gently.

“But it’s cut short,” he breathed out. “He’s leaving the day after tomorrow.”

_Oh._

“Did— Did he say why? Did _they_ say anything?”

“I don’t care about the reasons.” He said, finally looking at you in the cramped space of his closet. “I just want him to stay longer.”

You didn’t know what to say. This was probably the most open Wakatoshi had been to you in one sitting, and you didn’t know if he even wanted you to say anything.

Did he want you to comfort him? Did he want you to tell him it was gonna be okay? Did he want you to—

“I hate this.” The statement sounded so unfitting with his deep, monotone voice. “I hate that he doesn’t live here anymore. I hate that they’re separated. I hate that they’re divorced.”

You knew all too well how he was feeling. Sure, your parents weren’t separated _yet_ , but the stark similarity of it all made your eyes water. And hearing him say that to you — to _you_ , a friend whom he just met at the beginning of that very summer — spoke volumes. 

And even though you still didn’t know what to say, you had a rough idea on what you had to do.

Shuffling around in his incredibly tiny closet, you shifted closer to him as much as the space would let you and wrapped your arms tightly around him.

Wakatoshi was the one who hid in the closet. He was the one who was showing a more vulnerable side of him. He was the one who needed comfort.

So why were _you_ the one who was crying?

“D-Don’t worry, T-Toshi,” you mumbled into his neck, a few tears rolling down your face as you faintly registered his arms hugging you back. “I g-got you. I’m here, I got y-you…”

It was the first time he ever saw you cry. Sure, he noticed that you were much more silent and sad at times than the other kids he met at school, and even though he already knew _why_ you were more somber than most, he never saw you lose composure.

Until now.

Seeing you cry was something he never wanted to happen again. And though he knew himself to be an ‘actions speak louder than words’ kind of person, he still racked his brain for something, _anything_ , to say to you.

When you had first unintentionally hinted at your own family’s situation that day at the park, he wanted to distract you and ask you to play ‘pirates’ or volleyball or _anything_ with him.

But he didn’t.

When you had climbed in his window that one night when your parents' voices had practically awoken the whole neighborhood, he wanted to comfort you and ask you to live with him in _his_ house instead.

But he never said a word.

And now that you were breaking down in his arms, tear tracks faintly illuminated by the dim yellow closet light, just as he was having a tearless breakdown of his own, he wanted to take you far away. He wanted to help you and ask you to run away with him, far away from all the madness that the grownups in your lives had caused.

And so he did.

+

“Pack your dolls. Bring a sweater, too.”

“But I don’t have a sweater,” you said to an oddly calm Wakatoshi as the two of you were talking quietly in your bedroom later that day. Conveniently enough, your parents were out of the house when you and your olive-haired friend executed your impromptu packing and prepared for your eventual leaving.

Immediately, he shrugged off the jacket he was wearing and draped it around you. “Here, take mine.”

“Thanks, Toshi,” you beamed at him before moving over to your dolls, choosing three special ones which you put in your small backpack and giving the rest to Wakatoshi who was already opening up his own stuffed-to-the-brim duffel bag. Wordlessly, he stuffed them inside and you had to bite your tongue to keep from asking how he somehow managed to fit everything. Instead, you asked him something else along the lines of, “Where are we going?”

“Far away,” he said, taking the initiative to grab a handful of clothes from your closet and handing them to you to speed up the packing process — which was good thinking, really, because the two of you wasted a lot more time when you were packing _his_ things in his room earlier. “To some other country far away. India, maybe?”

You had no idea where India was but the thought of going there with Wakatoshi didn’t sound too bad.

“That sounds nice. Let’s move there forever, Toshi.”

Zipping up the bag and slinging it on his shoulder, he looked at you with that same expression he wore when you told him being left-handed was the coolest thing in the world. Grabbing your hand, he gave it a gentle squeeze before dragging you out the door and out of the house.

That moment, in your seven-year-old mind, felt like the start of a wonderful journey, and for once in your young life, it felt like things were going your way. And it did… for a good forty-something minutes.

Because just as you and Wakatoshi walked a good distance away from the general area and rounded the corner of the neighborhood park, the night’s heavy clouds started pouring unexpectedly. Even Toshi, ever the prepared and logical boy scout, hadn’t taken the weather into account.

“Here,” he gestured at a tree by your favorite swing set which looked to be a good enough pseudo umbrella. “Let’s wait it out here for a while.”

“We can’t,” you whined, tugging at his hand, his grip on yours never loosening. “They’re gonna find us if we don’t hurry up and—”

“They’re _not_ —”

“Yes, they are! We’re not even that far away yet—”

“It will take a while before they’ll think of looking here—”

“Cars, Toshi! They’ve got cars! _We_ don’t—”

“Come on,” he tugged you against him, firmly keeping you under the unstable cover provided by the tree’s leaves. “We’re getting out of here. Soon, I promise.”

“But—”

“Listen to me,” he wrenched his hand out of your grip and grabbed both of your shoulders, locking eyes with you with an intensity you had only seen him wear when volleyball was involved. “We’re going somewhere, far, far away. Somewhere nice. Somewhere we won’t ever have to hear the word ‘divorce’ again. We just have to stay here for a while so we don’t get sick. We can’t travel if we’re sick.”

He was right, but your heart still pounded frantically against your chest at the very real possibility of your parents catching up with the two of you. Sighing, you sat down on the muddy ground and slumped against the trunk of the tree, pulling him down so he could sit beside you and you could lean your head against his shoulder.

You felt _tired_. You haven’t even reached the outskirts of town, yet your body already felt drained.

You liked to think that was the exact moment when you _knew_ that your little plan, the spur-of-the-moment plan you and Wakatoshi came up with, was always destined to fail. And an hour or two later, when the rain showed no signs of stopping and you caught sight of two pairs of flashing headlights by the park’s entrance, you felt his hand find yours in the muddy ground.

“[Name]?”

“Yes, Toshi?” You felt him give your hand a gentle squeeze as the familiar cars stopped a little distance from the two of you, and both your families filed out.

He turned to you, his eyes apologetic and yours resigned.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

You didn’t know exactly what he was apologizing for. Was it for insisting you wait for the rain to pass? Was it for planting the whole idea in your head in the first place? Was it for breaking his promise?

You didn’t know. None of those were his fault anyway, and you told him so just as your parents dragged you away from each other, with them hysterically crying over your temporary disappearance.

Even when your parents fastened your seatbelt in the backseat of your car and when Wakatoshi’s family buckled him in theirs, you still didn’t know. And even when later that night saw the worst fight your parents ever had, you _still_ didn’t know.

But the very next day at dawn when your mother tucked you in the car, your suitcase and hers all packed up in the trunk, with your sour-looking father watching on from the front door of the house you called home for the past weeks, what you _did_ know was that you were incredibly thankful for your olive-haired friend.

His plan might have been a failure, but for a moment there — a sweet, brief moment — you actually thought you could be _free_.

And for your seven-year-old mind, ‘free’ meant running away with Wakatoshi. It meant leaving to a far away place without grownups breathing down your necks about left-handedness and stupid divorces. It meant going somewhere where both of you could play all day and not have to worry about climbing over windows or hiding in closets.

Being ‘free’ meant all the beautiful things. And as your mother drove further and further away from your father and from your house, basically uprooting you from the home you have grown to love for the past few weeks without so much as letting you say goodbye to Wakatoshi, you started to wonder… were there still beautiful things?

Back then, you were sure the answer was a big fat no. But years later, you eventually found the answer to that to be a positive one.

Because you were seven years old when you left behind Ushijima Wakatoshi. And though decades have passed and your traitorous memory can no longer recall his face, you still had all the love for him, born from a few short weeks of a bittersweet summer. And your beautiful friendship with him, though fleeting, eventually became a bedtime lullaby for your children, and even later on, for _their_ children.

It warmed your heart to know that a few generations down the line, your family’s children would still know the story of the blunt, olive-haired, volleyball-obsessed boy who showed you a kind of love that far surpassed the lightyears of the moon and Saturn.

And just like a folk song, that love will be passed on, and on, and on.


End file.
